A Brief History and Celebration of Bitcoin's 11 Years in Existence

The 31st of October may be Halloween for most
folk, but there is yet another reason to remember the date. 11 years ago, at
the height of the U.S. subprime mortgage financial crisis, Bitcoin's white paper
was released.

Nakamoto later released the Bitcoin open source software in
January 2009. The first person to receive Bitcoin was Hal Finney, a computer
scientist & cryptography enthusiast.

A Bit About Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto's identity remains unknown to this day. Some
have suspected Dorian Nakamoto, Hal Finney, & Nick Szabo to be the man
behind the moniker. Nick Szabo was the
founder of smart contracts & "bit gold" a predecessor of Bitcoin.

There were a few individuals who have declared themselves to
be Satoshi Nakamoto. This includes Craig Wright who is the figurehead behind
Bitcoin SV and James Bilal Khalid Caan of SatoshiNrh.

Satoshi Nakamoto's last message on the popular forum he
created, Bitcointalk was dated December 12th 2010. It is believed
that the email associated with him & his P2P Foundation
profile have been compromised.

Bitcoin's Price Evolution

The price of Bitcoin is known for its volatility, but a look
at the charts mostly shows steady growth.

- October 31st,
2010 - 1 BTC = $0.125

- October 31st,
2011 - 1 BTC = $3.12

- October 31st,
2012 - 1 BTC = $10

- October 31st,
2013 - 1 BTC = $200

- October 31st,
2014 - 1 BTC = $340

- October 31st,
2015 - 1 BTC = $312

- October 31st,
2016 - 1 BTC = $697

- October 31st,
2017 - 1 BTC = $6,447

- October 31st,
2018 - 1 BTC = $6,336

- October 31st,
2019 - 1 BTC = $9,142

Bitcoin Forks

Over the year's disagreements rose in the world of Bitcoin.
Without the guidance of Satoshi Nakamoto or anyone truly at the helm, many splits
known as forks have occurred. The exact number of Bitcoin forks is roughly 70,
with most of them defunct.

A few Bitcoin forks have succeeded to some degree. This
includes Bitcoin Cash which forked on August 2017, Bitcoin Gold which forked on
October 2017 & Bitcoin SV, which forked from Bitcoin Cash in November 2018.

Nearly every hard fork rewarded Bitcoin holders with an
equal amount of the forked currency to their holdings.

Bitcoin & Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin was the first fully functioning decentralized
cryptocurrency. As such, there have been many attempts to improve on or replicate
its code. Some of the best known are Ethereum, Dogecoin, Litecoin &
Ripple's XRP but thousands were released through the years.

October 2012 - 4 cryptocurrencies traded.

October 2013 - 32 cryptocurrencies traded.

October 2014 - 547 cryptocurrencies traded.

October 2015 - 673 cryptocurrencies traded.

October 2016 - 714 cryptocurrencies traded.

October 2017 - 1249 cryptocurrencies traded.

October 2018 - 2081 cryptocurrencies traded.

Today there are over 3048 different cryptocurrencies online.

Bitcoin & the Future

As per writing this, Bitcoin is currently trading at $9,100.
October has been a pretty volatile month for Bitcoin. We've seen lows of $7488
and highs of $9,800.

The Bitcoin market is maturing and expanding as of late.
Bakkt's Bitcoin Futures launched last month and Bitcoin Options will be rolled
out in December. As more regulation enters the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,
financial institutions are starting to take notice.

While Bitcoin has yet to break its all-time high of $20,000,
it is clear that it is here to stay. The world's first cryptocurrency will
likely remain relevant as long as there are cryptocurrencies. While there have
been attempts to regulate & even ban Bitcoin in some jurisdictions, as a
decentralized entity it isn't truly feasible.

One can assume that we might even tell our children "I
heard of Bitcoin back in 2012" someday.

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